By Taylor Finger, WDNR Migratory Game Bird Ecologist
This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s October, 2021 Newsletter.
Hello Everyone! The 2021 season is now underway and I hope all of you have an excellent year despite the fairly dry conditions statewide. I wanted to take this opportunity to address a situation that has arisen over the past 2-3 weeks regarding some confusion about the new Open Water Zone.
2021-2025 Open Water Zone
As background, we as a state are only allowed to change our zones and zone boundaries every five years per federal rules and the requirements of those zone boundaries are that they have to provide a unique opportunity and the zone boundary must be contiguous. We have been working since 2019 on the changes to the zone boundary, we have held well over two dozen meetings since 2019 asking for thoughts, feedback and input on everything from whether or not we wanted to change zones, what zone structure we should have and/or if we change what those boundaries should be. The Natural Resources Board in spring of 2020 approved the change in our duck zone structure to North, South and Open Water from North, South and Mississippi River.
Due to the federal timeline and approval process, states needed to approve their changes a year in advance of when the changes would go into effect. In late 2020 and early 2021, I began working with WDNR Law Enforcement staff to define the zone boundary for the open water zone. As you can image, this is a tough task because unlike a railroad boundary or a state highway, we were trying to create a boundary for a zone that is in constant fluctuation. After numerous discussions and emails we agreed on defining the Open Water Zone boundary as 500 feet or greater from the mainland shoreline as it was likely the most recognizable for hunters, and at the time we thought met our goals and objectives for separating shoreline hunters from those hunters that want to hunt in the open water portion of Lake Michigan and Green Bay. Additionally, we used “mainland” shoreline because the federal requirement for zones is that they must have a contiguous boundary. So, for example, had we defined the zone as just “shoreline” or “vegetation adjacent to shore”, this incorporates all of the islands off of the door county peninsula and then the boundary is not contiguous; rather we have areas like Washington Island that would be defined as South Zone, separated by several miles of open water zone from the mainland shore, which would again be south zone. This is not permitted by those federal regulations.
Well, as with best laid plans, once the season started to approach, we began getting inquiries from both hunters and staff regarding scenarios that required us to evaluate our decision that had been made and approved by the Natural Resources Board in the spring of 2021. We have received questions from staff and the public regarding areas similar to Long Tail Point on Green Bay, which is a piece of land that juts out into the bay. In some years in the past it has clearly been part of the shoreline, but with the current high water levels, most of Long Tail Point are islands and no longer part of mainland shoreline because the connection is under water. Locations like Long Tail Point may change on a regular basis based on fluctuations in water levels, so it’s the hunter’s responsibility to field verify anticipated hunting locations. We also received questions regarding scenarios where cattails may be further than 500 feet from the mainland shoreline and what zone would hunters be in if they wanted to hunt in or on the edge of those cattails.
In both of the scenarios above, our intention when creating the new “Open Water Zone” was that those areas would be for “shoreline hunters” and not part of the “Open Water Zone”. However, after having recent discussions with legal and our policy specialists, based on the agreed upon definition of 500 feet or further from the mainland shoreline, these areas are now in the “Open Water Zone”, which opens up on October 16th, rather than the South Zone, which opens up on October 2nd. To clarify, any areas 500 feet or further from mainland shore are now within the “Open Water Zone” opening October 16th, regardless of whether or not the hunter is “open water hunting”.
We recognize that there are going to be these types of scenarios, especially when we have a state like Wisconsin that has 65,000+ waterfowl hunters, and when we make a change to our duck zones. It is unfortunate that some of these changes are going to cause significant anger and angst among a subset of hunters that were not aware of these changes, or do not support these changes, but this is bound to happen when trying to construct a new zone/new opportunity. I have spoken with wildlife leadership and we will conduct future evaluations of these types of scenarios and work to address concerns where we can, while complying with federal requirements.
That being said, we are one week from the 2021 South Zone opener and we don’t have the time or resources to address these issues prior to the start of the season. This will be a learning experience for both hunters and WDNR staff and we will all do our best to educate hunters on these issues and work to improve this for 2022.
If you have any thoughts, comments, suggestions or concerns please do not hesitate to reach out to me at Taylor.Finger@wisconsin.gov. As stated above, we are going to try to make some changes for 2022 so that we can address any confusion and improve the zone.
Best,
Taylor